Recently, in all kinds of industrial worlds such as food industry and manufacturing industry, enhancement of safety and management systems of commercial products has been required, and therewith, the amount of information on the commercial products are increasing. However, the current information given to a commercial product is limited to information such as a country of manufacture, a manufacturer, or an item number, mainly provided by ten and several digits of a bar code, and the amount of information is quite small. Further, in the case of using bar codes, it takes time to manually read the bar codes one by one. Correspondingly, instead of the bar code system, an automatic identification technology by using a noncontact IC tag utilizing an electromagnetic wave, referred to as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), has been attracting attention.
In addition, in order to ensure safety of animals and plants (for example, a place of origin, whether infected with an infectious disease or not, or the like), a system is becoming common, in which IC chips are directly implanted into bodies of the animals and plants to obtain and manage information on the animals and plants by an information reading device (reader) provided outside the bodies.
In addition, the number of cards owned by a person has been growing, and above all, a noncontact IC card which establishes communication by utilizing electromagnetic field is becoming common, for example, in forms of electronic money and electronic tickets. Further, as cases such as heinous crimes and disappearances are increased, an ID (identification) card or the like is becoming common, with which whereabouts of an individual particularly such as an infant, a pupil, an elderly person, or a tourist can be exactly grasped constantly so that the individual can be recognized and protected from getting involved in an accident.
Furthermore, in order to prevent duplication or abuse of banknotes, coins, securities, tickets, or the like which are forged or stolen, a technique of implanting IC chips into them is becoming common (Reference 1: Nikkei Electronics (Nikkei Business Publications, Inc.) published on Nov. 18, 2002, pp. 67-76).